cooper was my first-born. he was born too early and didn't stay with me long enough. but he teaches me lessons every day. he has helped me be a better mom to mason. and a better person. this blog is a love-letter to mason, so that he will someday know what kind of impact his big brother had on his life. and on his mom's.

17 August, 2011

here's where we are today

i took my yoga class. haven't been back since, but it's stayed with me. yoga is more important off the mat, anyway.

i went to acupuncture to get my chi flowing.

i have been reading my buddha books again. and i am finding some peace. of course i am not all better, but as far as the anger at the people who don't deserve it, i am letting go.

but then there were these two blog posts and a comment that got me thinking. the thoughts are rolling around in my head. so here i am letting them out. working through them. trying to figure it all out.

for one thing, i have decided that i will only be responding to a need for help when the help is asked for. i will reach out to people who are open and receptive. and the rest i will let go. i can accept that a parent can only make the choices that he or she is ready for right now in this lifetime. i can't change anyone. i can support other mothers if i know their decisions are made out of love, but when decisions are made out of selfishness, i believe that to be another story. i can't support that. i can keep my mouth shut (most of the time), but i cannot support it. babies are too too precious for us to treat them as if they matter so little.

so do i still judge? you bet. we all do. it's human nature. i'm working on it.

but here is the difference. i would never say something to a woman to make her feel bad for her parenting choices. yes, i say it here in my blog. but i don't force anyone to read my blog. people know where i am coming from. they don't have to read it. i say it on my facebook page that was set up specifically so i could say these things. i do not say it to a mother in line at the grocery store (well i did once, but i would never again). or to my friend. or to a cousin. or to anyone.

some say that if we don't want to be judged for our choices, we should not judge others. again, everyone judges. the trouble comes when we let those judgments out to hurt feelings. i would never outright tell a mother that she is making a wrong choice or that i think i know best. i may think these things in my head, and we all do and that's okay, but i would never let it out.

i do, however, find it amusing that so many feel it is okay to tell me that i should not have my baby in bed with me, that i should not still be nursing my son, that i should not pick him up every time he cries, that i should vaccinate him, that i should not have my baby at home, etc. etc. the difference is, though, that when someone says those things to me or about me, i don't care. it annoys the shit out of me that they think it's okay to say it, but it does not make me question what i am doing, nor does it make me feel guilty about my decisions. does it make me lose respect for the person. hell yes. does it make me keep them at a distance? for sure. but i say judge away!

i judge because i believe that our world is affected by the way people are born and by the way they are cared for as babies. i believe this because my gut tells me it is true. and because the research backs it up.

oh i know, you can find research to back up anything.

but i have yet to see research that proves that breast feeding is unhealthy (no matter how long it's done). i have never seen an ounce of research to prove that babies are not harmed in some way by being left alone to cry. i have never seen research that says it is not harmful to put a baby in your choice of plastic and to ignore it. i have not seen research that proves it is unsafe for a breast feeding mother to sleep in bed with her baby.

of course, it is impossible to prove that something is not harmful.

but i have read lots of research stating the opposite to be true.

so i am working on being unconsumed by it all. i am working on letting go. the buddha reminds me that suffering comes from the attachment to the idea that things should be different, not from the thing itself. so i am working on it.

and in the end, most of the babies will be fine. my hope is that in the future, we will all be more than fine.

3 comments:

This is great. You made so many points with which I totally agree. I so wish I could be more like you & be so confident in my choices that other people's comments don't get under my skin the way they do. I hate that I am so bothered by women who judge me. I know I'm doing my best for my son, yet it still gets me thinking when someone disagrees with me. I don't know why that is. Since my blog post about this yesterday, I received so many great comments and lots of advice I plan to take. Most important, I need a thicker skin. And then I need to move on & stop obsessing about whatever the person said to me. I also could use some witty comebacks!

i disagree that you don't care when someone makes a comment to you ONLY because you said it bugs the shit out of you. if it bugs you, then doesn't that mean you care?

i agree that we all judge, and it pisses me off greatly when people say that either they don't or that nobody should judge. bullshit. i've been in several FB fights because of that. if i see a parent smack a kid, i'm allowed to judge that parent as a "smacker," and i'm allowed to make sure that person never watches my kid. when i see a musician arrested and tried in court of sex with a 14-year old, on video, i'm allowed to judge that i'd never let that guy near my kid. that's the one that got me in a fight on FB. the other person said that they would never judge him. bullshit, again.

we judge all day long. if we didn't judge, then we won't be very smart and we'll follow the same patterns of errors. if a teacher tells me that a student stole something from her classroom, you better be damn sure i'm going to judge that kid as a theif and make sure he or she is never out of my sight in my classroom.

we all judge. and we all need to admit and accept it. michele bachmann recently said she doesn't judge people. she also said that living a gay lifestyle is part of satan. but she's not judging. her husband runs a therapy clinic that "cures" people from being gay. he doesn't judge, but he wants to "cure" gays. if i'm curing cancer, i think i have judged that cancer is bad.